“By arguing that ‘the medium is an extension of the human body or mind,’ he described the wheel as an extension of the foot, the book as an extension of the eye, and clothing as an extension of the skin.”

For those less familiar with his scholarly work or theoretical writings, Marshall McLuhan is often recognized by that famous photograph of him standing before a wall of television screens. In the public imagination, he remains a prominent media figure and one of the founding fathers of New Media theory. With the concept of the Global Village he introduced in the 1960s, he foresaw that the internet would become an infrastructure technology; at a time when everyone was focused on content, that is the message he pointed to the tools, or more accurately, the “medium.” Through his provocative ideas, television appearances, lectures, and presence in mainstream media, he elevated his fame far beyond the typical sphere of influence for an academic. He succeeded in reaching a wide audience; with his media critiques, cultural analyses, and distinctive aphorisms woven into his compelling style, he became a well-known figure. Thus, he is recognized as one of the most influential media theorists of his time and as one of the early science communicators, successfully opening up his ideas for public debate. Discussions on how mass media influences human senses and the balance between them continue to follow the path McLuhan pioneered. The media theories and analytical framework he established remain a powerful conceptual tool for studies aiming to interpret new media.

McLuhan is particularly remembered for concepts such as The Medium Is the Message and The Global Village; for this reason, he has faced harsh criticism from academic communities. However, the fact that the internet and social media have evolved into a fundamental communication technology worldwide, as he predicted, serves as proof of how accurate his predictions were. Moreover, McLuhan’s ideas were not limited to books; he reached out to the public through his unforgettable interview with one of the most popular magazines of his time, Playboy (1969). By distilling his media theories down to their simplest terms and illustrating them with examples relevant to everyone’s daily life, he used the very medium through which he communicated his ideas as a tool in the process. Indeed, by stating that “The medium is the extension of man”, he described the wheel as an extension of the foot, the book as an extension of the eye, and clothing as an extension of the skin; he defi ned technology as a natural part of humanity’s process of enhancing its own capabilities. In this interview, he elaborated on one of his most memorable statements, “The medium is the message,” by saying, “Television is not just an entertainment box; it reshapes the way people see, hear, feel, and think,” and he engraved his theory in people’s minds using examples from everyday life. Another medium through which McLuhan continued his efforts to popularize science was television. After his books made it onto the bestseller lists, McLuhan was featured in the episode titled The Medium is the Message from NBC’s documentary series Experiment in Television. Produced with an experimental approach, this episode visualizes McLuhan’s theories through colored lights, rapid editing, and a pop-art aesthetic. The documentary describes McLuhan as the “high priest of pop culture” and a “trendy intellectual.”

“‘Television is not just an entertainment box; it reshapes the way people see, hear, feel, and think,’ and he engraved his theory in people’s minds using examples from everyday life.”

He employed the same strategy in his lectures, conveying his theories through examples that resonated with students’ lives. Rejecting traditional lecture formats, he used everyday details from advertising slogans to newspapers and from popular songs to street signs as examples. He analyzed Coca- Cola’s Things go better with Coke slogan and examined the poetic narrative of advertisements. In this way, he produced theoretical approaches using data gathered from everyday life, translating abstract analyses into understandable language. Through this, he brought academia’s closed discourse into everyday life in a way that the average person could comprehend. While explaining how even typography shapes human thought, he illustrated how every detail from the layout of newspaper pages and street posters to the arrangement of lines in store windows shapes perception. He emphasized that writing shapes the senses not only through its meaning but also through its form.

In his lectures, he effectively put on a stage performance; through humor, irony, and theatrical gestures, he aimed not only to have the audience listen but also to surprise them, make them think, and encourage them to question. From time to time, with unexpected phrases like “Today I’m not speaking to you, but to this microphone,” he conveyed the impact of the medium directly to those watching in that very moment. He described the massive live broadcast Our World in 1967, featuring twenty-four countries, as a communication miracle in which the world had transformed into a Global Village. He characterized The Beatles’ performance of All You Need Is Love as a collective rhythm in which millions of people could share the same emotion simultaneously. In this way, he defi ned a technological revolution as a process that resonates with the public’s senses. Similarly, in that unforgettable scene from Woody Allen’s Annie Hall where a character brings McLuhan into the, his intervention in the characters’ discussion with the line “you know nothing of my work” served as a way to infuse his theory into popular culture. In this way, he brought even an academic debate to the public using the language of humor and everyday life, thereby taking science communication beyond its traditional boundaries. One of his most remarkable works is the book The Medium Is the Massage. Like his other works, this book is based on his own theories, as he explains them.

Unlike standard theoretical texts, McLuhan crafted this book using collage aesthetics, typographic play, visuals, and short passages, thereby embodying the image that form is an integral part of content. He also collaborated on this book with Quentin Fiore, one of the most important graphic designers of his time, producing a visually appealing work that brought it recognition. While the word “Massage” in the book’s title, may appear to be a mistake, he explained that he chose to use “massage” instead of “message,” implying that communication tools stimulate and shape human senses like a massage. Thus, even the book’s title has become an example reflecting McLuhan’s theoretical horizon.

During the years when McLuhan was developing his theories, the prevailing perspective in communication studies was an approach that focused on the content of messages and drew on models of propaganda and attitude change. In contrast to this content-centered approach that took shape after World War II, McLuhan placed the medium at the center, opening a discussion of the transformative role of the medium’s carrier in human senses and social order, thereby distinguishing himself from his contemporaries. Structuralist and language-centered theorists generally found McLuhan’s emphasis on the determinism of media to be reductionist (oversimplifying a complicated issue by trying to explain it using only one single cause), prioritizing the analysis of symbolic orders and cultural codes. Sociological critiques, meanwhile, viewed his positioning of technology as the sole key to social change as incomplete, arguing that he overlooked the cultural context.

Despite all these ideological differences, McLuhan opened up a space for public discourse not only through his conceptual vision but also through the way he shared these concepts with society; he succeeded in popularizing his theory by establishing a broad repertoire of communication, ranging from television programs to radio interviews, and from magazine columns to theatrical performances on stage. He embraced television, the rising medium of the era, before his peers, going beyond merely describing its transformative impact to letting people experience it firsthand. This is because television, especially from the mid-1950s onward, took its place in homes and became the center of daily life.

“McLuhan’s concepts of ‘cool’ and ‘hot’ media among his most important conceptual tools provide a significant framework by explaining the interaction between the user and the medium.”

Television transformed the social steering power that radio and cinema had maintained for many years by offering moving images, sounds, and live broadcast capabilities. With its diverse content ranging from news bulletins to entertainment programs, from series to sports broadcasts, it shaped the daily routines of the masses, transforming people’s agendas and even the way they perceive life. While bringing individuals together around a shared visual culture, it has reshaped the advertising industry from top to bottom, serving as a pillar for the spread of consumer culture on a mass scale. With this effect bringing family members together in front of the same screen in daily life and reorganizing the flow of life, it has also provided a powerful example to support McLuhan’s distinction between “hot” and “cool” media.

McLuhan’s concepts of “cool” and “hot” media among his most important conceptual tools provide a significant framework by explaining the interaction between the user and the medium. Examples of these include radio, cinema, and printed books. These media are defi ned as “hot” tools because they feature high resolution, dense data, and closed meanings. This is because these tools leave no room for the viewer to think, thereby creating a passive perceptual process. In contrast, “cool” tools are media that offer low resolution, incomplete data, and force the viewer to complete the meaning, thereby requiring active participation.

However, McLuhan places television in a very different category within cold media. He compares the viewer’s data flow in a “cool” participatory medium to a mosaic. To understand this method of data transmission, first understanding “what a mosaic is and why he equates television with it” is important.

In its most basic sense, a mosaic is a visual art form in which small, colorful pieces (stone, glass, ceramic, etc.) come together to form a whole. While each piece may not carry meaning on its own, when placed side by side, they create a large and meaningful composition. McLuhan uses this aesthetic structure to describe the modes of perception and thought in the media age. According to him, modern communication media -particularly television, advertisements, magazines, and later the internet- present information not in a sequential and linear manner, but in a fragmented, polyphonic, and simultaneous way. This requires the viewer to do more than just watch; it demands the ability to actively “fi ll in” the missing pieces. Social media feeds are one of the most prominent examples of this mosaic structure today. An Instagram Explore page or a TikTok feed creates a mosaic-like transmission experience where independent fragments are arranged randomly yet form a coherent whole in the user’s mind. Here, the mosaic is not merely an aesthetic element but is regarded as a new form of thinking, seeing, and constructing meaning in the media age.

McLuhan’s mosaic narrative form is directly intertwined with the concept of “cool media.” Just as a mosaic presents a fragmented and incomplete whole to be completed in the viewer’s mind, cold media also expects active participation from the viewer. Such media do not present everything “readymade” in high resolution; rather, they provoke perception, leave gaps, and make the viewer a part of the process. Mosaic structures such as newspaper layouts, advertising collages, or social media feeds do not transmit information directly; instead, they create chains of associations in the minds of their audiences. Thus mosaic aesthetics aligns closely with the fundamental characteristics of cool media. Low definition encourages high participation and, consequently, the production of multiple meanings. Television’s “two-dimensional mosaic” narrative, the constantly shifting content of social media, and postmodern designs constructed through collage techniques all establish a relationship in which the audience is not merely a consumer but also a producer of meaning. In this context, the mosaic structure can be understood as the visual and structural counterpart of McLuhan’s concept of cool media.

Within all these television programs and the institutional frameworks used to communicate with the masses, one of the most symbolic examples of McLuhan’s rise to international prominence was his feature in Time Magazine in 1969. Appearing in such a prestigious publication was an almost unimaginable sign of popularity for a communication theorist. The magazine described him with striking phrases like “the high priest of pop culture” and “the metaphysician of media,” emphasizing that he was a figure capable of speaking to the broader public’s search for meaning in a rapidly changing world of communication. He did not limit his influence to print and visual media; in connection with his work The Medium is the Massage, he recorded an audio album (LP) composed of music, sound, and fragmented narratives, thereby extending his theory into an auditory experience. McLuhan’s influence was not confi ned to North America; his ideas were widely discussed in intellectual circles across Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom and France, and are considered to have inspired the media theories of later thinkers such as Baudrillard.

Marshall McLuhan was not only one of the most influential media theorists of the 20th century but also a powerful science communicator who could convey his theories by bringing them directly into everyday life. His media theory opened a new paradigm in understanding communication by arguing that the medium is more powerful than the message; by viewing technology as a natural extension of humanity, he redefi ned the relationship between humans, the senses and technology. By appearing in popular media, he succeeded in bringing academic thought into the lives of ordinary people; through his conferences, television programs, magazine interviews, and stage performances, he transformed his theory into a spectacle, thereby making science accessible to the masses. McLuhan’s predictions have been largely validated by the rise of the internet, social media, and globalized communication networks, and the concept of the global village has become a reality in today’s world.

Despite all criticism, the analytical framework he developed regarding media remains a fundamental reference point in media studies. His legacy is an intellectual he approaches communication not merely as the transmission of information, but as a dynamic process that transforms human senses, modes of perception, and social structures.

In this regard, McLuhan is remembered as a theorist who continues to shed light on modern communication studies and whose ideas stand the test of time.

Marshall McLuhan: The Mastermind Behind the Media yazısı ilk önce Context Dergi üzerinde ortaya çıktı.

“In this realm of simulacra, the sole entity that maintains significance is Truman’s resilient mind. Christof is correct concerning one aspect: the external environment also presents numerous hazards. Indeed, the external world is not as secure as Seahaven; it is marked by chaos and uncertainty. According to Baudrillard, it is the “Desert of the Real.” Perhaps Christof’s confinement is not Seahaven itself but rather the comfortable living rooms of individuals who opt to change the channel instead of pursuing the truth and questioning their surroundings.”

“…good afternoon, good evening and good night!” 

The Truman Show, which opens with this line, chronicles the life of  Truman Burbank, a 30-year-old American man who has lived in a simulation since birth. This film, portraying Truman’s life broadcast live 24/7 to the world, symbolizes the loss of reality and privacy. No spontaneity or chance occurrences are allowed in Truman’s existence. Every aspect of his life is carefully orchestrated, including his encounters and conversations. His name combines “True” and “Man,” meaning “True-Man.” Interestingly, his last name, “Burbank,” is also the name of a media hub in California home to many Hollywood studios.

In a world filled with simulacra, Truman stands out as the only consciousness challenging the simulation’s limits. His name emphasizes his contradictory position within this simulated universe. In the fictional town of Seahaven where he resides, everyone is an actor devoid of true reality and emotion, merely reciting lines and performing roles to keep Truman confined within his artificial life. Despite his environment being fabricated, Truman’s feelings sadness, joy, longing, fear and his words are genuine. In Baudrillard’s view, the system relies on the innocence of the “True man” to maintain itself, mask its artificial nature, and convince viewers of a genuine truth. Humanity, adapting to its technological age, has become increasingly dependent on communication tools. The once pondered question “What is reality?” has faded into obscurity, replaced by the comfort of simulation. Baudrillard describes himself as a “theoretical terrorist,” believing that the only way to threaten the seamless machinery of modern simulation is through subversive ideas-taking meaning hostage and exposing the illusion of reality. Baudrillard’s main critique targets Disneyland, often seen as the embodiment of the American Dream. He argues that America is so fake, a literal concrete jungle, and lacking soul that it creates an entirely irrational fantasy world to keep people from questioning reality. Disneyland’s strange fictions aim to convince visitors that the outside gray city is real. When they leave this illusion and step back onto the streets, the real world seems even more authentic.

The clever tactic is to make visitors believe their gray; dull city is the real thing. Similar to how prisons make inmates feel that freedom has been lost – freedom they cannot see or reach but still know exists. People often desire what they’ve never experienced but deeply wished to. When even a faint hint of possibility arises in your mind’s deepest recesses, everything around you seems insignificant, insincere, and hollow. Disneyland was built to suppress and erase this feeling of longing. Similarly, in The Truman Show, Seahaven functions as a Disneyland created solely for Truman. Yet, Truman’s situation is much more tragic. Visitors to Disneyland see it as a simulation, and once they leave, they consider the real world as genuine. In contrast, Truman exists entirely within the simulation.

“Baudrillard argues that Truman’s world isn’t merely a lie or imitation. Imitation naturally recognizes reality’s existence and reminds us that it still exists. In this view, Truman’s life in Seahaven can be understood through Baudrillard’s ideas of simulation and simulacra.”

The primary illusion is that the outside world is real, but Disneyland aims to hide the fact that it is also a simulation. The world visitors believe to be real when they return is just as fictional as Truman’s. Baudrillard argues that Truman’s world isn’t merely a lie or imitation. Imitation naturally recognizes reality’s existence and reminds us that it still exists. In this view, Truman’s life in Seahaven can be understood through Baudrillard’s ideas of simulation and simulacra. He describes simulation as “the generation by models of a real without origin or reality,” meaning creating appearances of something that doesn’t exist, which displays all signs of reality but isn’t real itself.

A simulacrum is a copy without an original, made through this process. Acting as if there’s an original when none exists doesn’t imply Baudrillard seeks lost reality; instead, he states that reality has disappeared entirely.

Consequently, simulation gains its power from this absence, rooted in nihilism and nothingness. The question then arises: how does this hyperreal universe remain convincing? It does so through an invisible, absolute surveillance system that keeps subjects under control. Truman’s tragedy demonstrates this concept-the world around him has gone beyond mere falsehood, evolving into a hyperreal existence.

According to Baudrillard, America exists as a hyperreal universe, neither fully real nor merely a dream. This hyperreality is depicted in the film not only through dialogue but also via subtle background symbols and carefully crafted details. The initial hour feels like a continuous “Truman Show,” with viewers watching Truman on TV and their reactions reflecting our own. After this hour, the film shifts focus to “keeping Truman inside the box” and explores emerging moral dilemmas.

The practical embodiment of this theoretical framework in the film is best illustrated by director Christof’s approach. When Christof, who directs Truman, joins a live broadcast, the reporter thanks him, saying, “We all know how jealously you guard your privacy.” This contrasts sharply with Truman, whose entire life is constantly recorded through hidden cameras, showing how authority’s true power lies in invisibility. While Christof’s role closely resembles the central observer in Bentham’s Panopticon, Truman does not police his behavior, because he is unaware of the cameras watching him and does not feel the oppressive gaze.

Throughout the film, whenever Truman experiences anger or emotional crises, his wife Meryl doesn’t offer support; instead, she suggests, “You know, you really ought to throw out that mower. Get one of those new Elk Rotaries.” In our world, it’s very easy to become a consumer because solutions are often presented as products that require ongoing purchase, rather than through access to healthcare and therapy. Director Christof deliberately caused Truman to lose his father at sea to evoke fear of the ocean, thereby trying to stop Truman from traveling abroad.

In a scene, Truman sits alone on the beach, gazing at the sea, when a flashback shows his father disappearing during a storm at sea. It is unclear whether Truman genuinely remembers this event, but it can be seen as the message the director aimed to communicate to the audience.

When the flashback concludes, it begins to rain just enough to soak Truman. The cloud seems to follow him everywhere. However, this unusual sight doesn’t frighten Truman; instead, it boosts his confidence, helping him find the courage to escape. When he gets back home, he eagerly tells his wife about his plan to go to Fiji. This scene highlights how little the director understands Truman. The director believed the rain would trigger Truman to remember his father’s death and become scared, but Truman’s immediate thought was to cross the ocean and reach Fiji. By the end of the movie, despite all the obstacles in his way, Truman finds a boat and begins his journey alone.

He believes he can finally realize his dream of going to Fiji, but the director is resolute in preventing him. Truman reaches the end of the artificial sea where his boat has been sailing and crashes into the sky-like set. His face shows a mix of surprise and disappointment. At that moment, the director decides to speak to Truman directly for the first time. Truman cannot see him, but the director’s voice comes from the sky. This serves as proof that the director views himself as Truman’s creator. When the director tells Truman, “There’s no more truth out there than there is the world I created for you.” Truman’s shocked response is, “You never had a camera in my head.” This line explains why the flashbacks in the movie don’t always align with Truman’s decisions.

“The film’s true conclusion lies in the scene with the two security guards who cheer for Truman’s escape, only to ask, ‘What else is on?’ the moment the screen goes dark. This ending encapsulates the film’s central thesis, illustrating Baudrillard’s assertion that meaning implodes within an endless media flow where a war report and a commercial are consumed with identical detachment, and the audience remains thoroughly desensitized to reality.

Truman steps off the stage through the black door to seek reality, illustrating a poignant act of courage. Despite the fear and chaos that may await outside, he chooses to forge his own path. This moment highlights the tragic heroism in facing the unknown, as the world of simulation relies on the abandonment of such courage. The system endures only when individuals cease resistance, accept their predetermined roles without question, and survive solely through consumption.

We never see what happens to Truman afterward. He spends his entire life watched by cameras and desperately tries to escape that reality. If the film had shown his actions after he walked through the door, it wouldn’t have conveyed the profound experience of leaving the simulation.

What happens next is unique to Truman himself, making his story singular. The film’s true conclusion lies in the scene with the two security guards who cheer for Truman’s escape, only to ask, “What else is on?” the moment the screen goes dark. This ending encapsulates the film’s central thesis, illustrating Baudrillard’s assertion that meaning implodes within an endless media flow where a war report and a commercial are consumed with identical detachment, and the audience remains thoroughly desensitized to reality. Throughout the film, viewers are engaged with Truman’s life, curious about his fate, but once his life is no longer broadcast, he seems to vanish, as if he never existed. For the audience, the show simply becomes entertainment.

“You never had a camera in my head.” This line defines the limits of the simulation. While power can confine the body, simulate environments, and influence surroundings, it can never fully access the human mind’s privacy. Truman’s triumph wasn’t just about leaving that door; it was about the thirty years he spent under constant surveillance, during which he created a genuine sanctuary within his mind-a place even the creator of his world couldn’t invade.

In a world filled with simulacra, Truman’s unbreakable mind is the only thing that keeps meaning alive. Christof is correct about one thing: the outside world is also fraught with dangers. It’s true that the outside isn’t as safe as Seahaven; it’s chaotic and unpredictable. As Baudrillard describes, it’s the “Desert of the Real.” Maybe Christof’s prison isn’t Seahaven itself, but the cozy living rooms of those of us who prefer to change the channel rather than face the truth and question the world around us.

Just as Christof persuaded Truman that he was experiencing a natural flow of events instead of a world of illusions, the film persuades us of the same idea. While observing Truman’s artificial world, we, like visitors to Disneyland, are under the illusion that our own world is authentic.

Truman woke up and left. But what about us? We’re still on air…

“The Desert of Real” Welcome Truman yazısı ilk önce Context Dergi üzerinde ortaya çıktı.

Prof. Nurdoğan Rigel, one of Türkiye’s leading communication scholars, explores the foundational approaches and critical turning points in communication studies. Her account spans from the establishment of communication faculties in Türkiye and the urban sociology tradition of the Chicago School which played a significant role in shaping the discipline to the American years of Theodor Adorno, an influential figure of the Frankfurt School who paved the way for critical theory.

Aslı Şen: Welcome, Professor Rigel. It’s wonderful to have you with us. Could we begin by getting to know you a little better?

Nurdoğan Rigel: I completed my bachelor’s degree at Marmara University, followed by my master’s and doctorate at Istanbul University. Back then, first-year students were required to do an internship. I started mine at the Turkish News Agency (THA) with great enthusiasm. Once I joined the agency, I grew to love journalism even more, as you realize you’re learning far more than what is taught in the classroom. At the time, the Turkish News Agency was regarded as the best training ground for journalism, second only to the Anadolu Agency. Of course, you learn the profession the hard way. Ultimately, you cannot expect the managers and editors at your workplace to act as mentors; they are under constant pressure to deliver news on time. They are systematic and professional, while you are in the position of a novice, hoping for guidance. In fact, my first news stories often ended up in the trash. Our editor would cross out the parts he disliked with a red pen and throw them away. I would wait for him to leave for lunch, then retrieve the stories from the trash to examine his edits and notes. I taught myself how to write news that way. I learned everything how to gather, conceptualize, and organize a story through that process of trial and error, a real “baptism by fire.” Back then, at university, we mostly took classes from business, economics, and law professors; the field of ‘communication’ did not exist yet. We had only one or two lecturers from TRT or the Cumhuriyet newspaper, and they rarely attended classes. We were essentially emerging from an intellectual vacuum, and we had to fill that void through our own efforts. Every Tuesday and Thursday, foreign magazines arrived at the agency. I learned a great deal from them, particularly Newsweek and Time. Even just scanning the headlines in those magazines builds a significant body of knowledge a realization that truly hits you years later. Moreover, this environment forces you to develop reflexes: to think, read, and write at lightning speed. That muscle memory develops over time. It is a process you don’t notice while you are living it, but you realize how it shaped you years later, when you look back or when asked about it by others. Once that happens, you can never truly leave journalism.

Mustafa Burak Avcı: Professor, what led you to pursue a path in academia?

N.R: While I was learning so much at the Turkish News Agency, I found I couldn’t tear myself away from the university; my intellectual thirst was still very much alive. It was through the late Toktamış Ateş, a prominent professor at Istanbul University’s Faculty of Economics who frequently visited the agency, that I learned about the establishment of the Institute of Social Sciences. I wasn’t about to miss that opportunity, so I applied immediately.

Following my master’s and PhD studies, and I realized I had grown to love Istanbul University even more. Perhaps the influence of the distinguished professors from the law, political science, and business faculties played a role.

At the time, it was clear that Public Relations was closely intertwined with the field of Business School. The academic language of the other disciplines was quite challenging; law, as we know, has its own dense syntax, and political science, while somewhat more accessible, was still demanding. International Relations remains my great love, and because I approached it with genuine passion, political science became easier to engage with. Yet, I could never bring myself to like law even though I knew I had to master its language. Business Administration and Political Science ended up being my favorite areas of study. You see, back in that era, the field of communication science didn’t yet exist in Türkiye. The disciplines were structured as follows: Journalism and Public Relations, and Radio and Television; cinema was added later on. I pursued my master’s degree in Public Relations and Journalism. My master’s thesis was titled, “The Impact of Mass Media on Elections.” The story behind this thesis is quite interesting; in journalism, we have a practice known as pulling a quote. You extract a specific element from the content. Since a journalist must write a headline, they immediately pull out a key point from the text to use as the hook.

“Park was also the first to view the city as a laboratory and to recognize that communication functions as a form of social control. Communication is, in essence, a system of control that operates so subtly you hardly notice it.”

Robert E. Park, 1930s

One day, I came across the term “Political Advertising” in an editor’s column in Newsweek. “That’s it, I’ve found it!” I thought. I decided to base my thesis on this topic. However, there were no available resources on the subject at the time. While I was wondering how to proceed, I attended a fourto-five-day conference in Istanbul as a reporter. A multitude of professors were there political scientists, media and communication scholars… We were there to cover the event, but my mind was occupied with questions for my thesis. There was one particularly significant figure present, the kind of person who possesses a magical touch they might not realize the impact of their influence, but they leave a lasting impression. Betül Mardin was one of them. She was the pioneer of Public Relations in Türkiye, and she was at that very conference. She looked quite stern, but she was an absolutely wonderful lady. I approached her and explained my predicament. one day she called me to her office. “I will bring you an article from Time; you will see that political advertising is right there.”

I honestly thought that someone so incredibly busy and preoccupied would have forgotten all about me. But no, she hadn’t forgotten at all; she had actually brought the article. In essence, that article became the cornerstone of my work. It was a concept that existed globally, yet here, one had to struggle just to uncover it. Indeed, by the 1983 elections, advertisers led primarily by Man Ajans began to enter the fray. At that time, I went to interview Eli Acıman, and he had told me, “Forget about journalism, kid; come join our agency.” I was so intent on becoming a ‘great journalist’ that I declined. I hadn’t yet realized how much creativity and intelligence advertising demanded, or how much it could have contributed to my development. That remains one of my regrets.

I managed to complete the thesis somehow, and it became the very first study in this field in Türkiye. After that, I realized I had become someone who was constantly in pursuit of new concepts. I then pursued my Ph.D. in Radio and Television. After completing my master’s degree in Journalism and Public Relations, I decided to switch perspectives and see what I could learn from the other side of the discipline. My doctoral thesis examined how satellite and cable broadcasting technologies would lead to significant legal challenges, as they would either render existing laws obsolete or simply outpace them.

I used the Gulf War as a case study. I later adapted this thesis into a book titled The Electronic Renaissance (Elektronik Rönesans). Subsequently, I published several other books, including Media Lullabies (Medya Ninnileri), Dream Blindness (Rüya Körleşmesi), News, Children, and Violence (Haber, Çocuk ve Şiddet), and News in Message Design (İleti Tasarımında Haber). Afterward, I had the opportunity to experience three American universities, and these institutions contributed significantly to satisfying my intellectual hunger.

Robert E. Park and Clara Cahill Park, at Chicago Campus.
University of Chicago Photo Archive, apf1-06709.

“Though rarely acknowledged, one of the most pivotal figures in Chicago was Jane Addams, the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She led a massive charitable institution and was the primary source of support for the University of Chicago faculty most notably Robert Park in their urban studies.”

The main campus of the University of Chicago, where Robert E. Park
conducted his academic work (Hyde Park, Chicago).

The first was Florida International University (FIU). Compared to others, it had a modest library, yet it was where I first witnessed that libraries did not have to close at five o’clock; they operated 24/7. It felt like a place where you could simply live and never leave. Because I would stay in the library until midnight, my closest friend became the campus police officer.

I still remember sitting down and crying when I counted 360 references for my thesis at FIU. While back home we could find virtually nothing, here, even in a small-scale university library, I could access 360 sources directly relevant to my thesis. That was the moment I realized that the core of the matter had long been settled elsewhere.

Afterward, I went to Texas A&M University. When I joined the doctoral courses on “Digital Storytelling” I saw that two professors could co-teach a single course: one week it was taught by a professor from Computer Science, and the next week I taught it from a discourse-based perspective. It is not exactly easy to conduct a course like that in our system; here, professors would often clash over turf. However, there was no such friction there. I learned a great deal from them as well.

Then there was Brandeis University in Boston another institution that contributed immensely to my development. I supervised a few theses there, too. These experiences likely led me to view communication studies through an American perspective. Of course, years later, one sees one’s own academic trajectory crystallizing. Self-discovery is a process that takes years. Essentially, I found myself shifting from a Francophone perspective to an American one. This was not something I did intentionally; it was a natural byproduct of the fact that the data and information were originating from that source.

During this process, I realized that I was delivering course content heavily rooted in the American tradition of communication studies. Throughout this time, I developed 24 distinct courses. Among these, there are two that I regret most not having had the chance to fully implement: Media and Diplomacy and Communication and Space. You will notice that when I designed the Communication and Space course, I drew heavily on the Chicago School.

Jane Addams with children at Hull House, 1930s.

A.Ş: How did communication studies emerge, and why is the Chicago School significant in this context?

N.R: When you trace the foundations and history of communication studies, you inevitably encounter the Chicago School. They were working primarily on sociology, barely realizing that they were laying the groundwork for what would become communication studies. The key to understanding this transition lies with Robert Ezra Park. If you examine Robert E. Park’s biography, you see he possessed a robust background in journalism. The moment a journalist steps into the realm of sociology, everything shifts. It is recounted in one of the articles about him: while his doctoral students were resting, exhausted from their separate research assignments, Robert Park approached them and famously asked, “How can you sit there? How can you just sit when the city is in constant motion?” This reaction is essentially a journalistic reflex. City reporters are never meant to stay seated. Even in today’s age, you cannot simply sit at a desk and ask Google or ChatGPT, “What is going on out there?” You must be right in the city, the very place where events unfold.

Robert Park’s journalistic instinct stems from this. Park was also the first to view the city as a laboratory and to recognize that communication functions as a form of social control. Communication is, in essence, a system of control that operates so subtly you hardly notice it. The reason this discipline emerged in Chicago is that, at the turn of the last century, the city was a site of profound chaos.

Take Upton Sinclair, for instance a journalist who penned the novel The Jungle, which exposed the horrific working conditions in meatpacking plants. I remember putting the book down after only a few pages, thinking, ‘I cannot go on.’ You simply cannot bear the weight of such reality, yet this was the daily existence for people in Chicago at the time. As a journalist, Sinclair faced intense backlash for documenting these truths. Then there is John Steinbeck, whom we all know well. His Cannery Row similarly depicts the crushing poverty of that era. When you think of “America,” your mind immediately goes to Hollywood; you see no trace of destitution, only a magnificent way of life. You are conditioned to believe that is the reality, but these authors insisted that it was not. Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath does exactly the same; he was a ‘narrative journalist’ who laid bare the misery in California. Sinclair and Steinbeck were the pioneers who broke the silence on this poverty. However, that is where the media’s control mechanism kicks in. If you read Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, you notice a staggering contrast. Suddenly, the narrative shifts from an America of misery to one of beauty, wealth, and five-star luxury. These stories were serialized in Travel magazine before being compiled into a book, and it is highly likely the editor told him, “Forget the misery; tell us about the beauty.” And just like that, America transforms into the sanitized version we know from Hollywood.

Thus, the Chicago School, together with Robert Park, positioned communication as a mechanism of social control. Though rarely acknowledged, one of the most pivotal figures in Chicago was Jane Addams, the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She led a massive charitable institution and was the primary source of support for the University of Chicago faculty most notably Robert Park in their urban studies. In fact, Jane Addams was the first to treat the city as a laboratory, even before the university did. She dedicated her life to helping street children, single parents, and the marginalized, striving to alleviate their suffering. Although her name appears in few textbooks, she is of profound significance. She meticulously mapped the city’s crime patterns, focusing on which neighborhoods reported the highest rates, the root causes of these offenses, and potential remedies. Addams made these issues visible by analyzing their causes and solutions, while Robert Park translated these into academic language and established them as an academic subject.

However, Park’s work does not aim to generate solutions perhaps because he does not view the core purpose of academia as problem-solving. When we begin to formulate our thesis regarding the Chicago School as the foundational element of communication sciences, two concepts emerge: should the field be approached through the lens of the “Sociology of Communication” or “Media Sociology”? These are not synonymous or interchangeable terms; the Sociology of Communication is a macro-concept, whereas Media Sociology is a micro-concept. When you examine the field through the lens of the Sociology of Communication, the sociological influence is far more pronounced. This is why I believe the Chicago School and the Sociology of Communication should be discussed in tandem. When viewed through the lens of Media Sociology, however, the landscape changes. This concept only gained prominence in the 1960s, as the full impact of television following the Second World War remained largely unrecognized until that decade. It was only after the late 1960s that this influence truly began to be felt. For instance, when the series Dallas began airing in Türkiye in the 1980s, we noticed that the streets were completely deserted during its broadcast. This was quite an anomaly for that era, especially in a city like Istanbul, which is bustling 24/7. Back then, people structured their entire schedules around Dallas. It aired on Thursdays, I believe, and we would deliberately avoid making plans for that evening. Dallas serves as one of the primary examples of how the media transformed everyday life. It demonstrated to those in power how everyday life could be controlled or ‘colonized,’ if you will by media narratives. Whether you label it as power or a control mechanism, the effect was the same.

“When I first started teaching, a student of mine once told me: ‘You are trying to teach us so many things, but first, teach us how to think.’ That was a profoundly important lesson for me. So, how do we teach that? Through critical theory.”

This brings us to Jürgen Habermas’s concept of “communicative action.” The idea of the ‘colonization of the lifeworld’ ultimately belongs to Habermas. If we set aside the Sociology of Communication for a moment and look at the public sphere through the lens of communicative action, we see that these two concepts are foundational and highly adaptable across every domain of communication. Years ago, at a conference, I suggested that the public sphere had essentially morphed into a private sphere. Other academics did not receive this well at the time. But look at us now are we not living in a “private sphere” on social media? Everything that was once intimate and private has become shareable, and this is done entirely with the individual’s own consent. Much like Chomsky’s concept of the ‘manufacture of consent,’ we are participating in this transformation of our own free will.

Foucault’s conceptualization of the “confession” reveals a specific power dynamic, and we have effectively embraced the power of social media, voluntarily confessing our lives to it. We wander about in a perpetual state of confession, and within this framework, our daily lives continue to be as Habermas would put it “colonized”  We are being colonized, quite literally. And we do this unconsciously, under the guise of mere entertainment. But has the experiential mechanism of communication ceased to function? Certainly not. The control and surveillance mechanisms identified in Chicago persist; they have simply mutated. In the past, this control was managed through censorship, propaganda, political communication, and traditional media editorial systems. None of those mechanisms are necessary now. Because we have already granted our consent; we have accepted this regime and allowed it to exploit our data and our very identities. Consequently, we are witnessing a fundamental transformation of Habermas’s concepts within a new, emerging paradigm.

Theodor W. Adorno, one of the leading thinkers of the Frankfurt School

Shoshana Zuboff, a retired professor from Harvard, conceptualizes this phenomenon as “surveillance capitalism.” Sherry Turkle, also from Harvard, coined the term “alone together.” They were among the first scholars to recognize how social life and technosociology were being reshaped by the rapid evolution of communication technology in the 1990s. It is no coincidence that these scholars emerged from Harvard. While few of Sherry Turkle’s books have been translated into Turkish, her seminal contribution to the field remains the concept of being “alone together.” Indeed, we are becoming increasingly alienated, transforming into atomized and isolated individuals. We do this willingly, wholeheartedly, under the illusion that we are enjoying ourselves. And yes, perhaps people actually are having fun.

I was watching a game show the other day. One of the contestants was an influencer who, by all accounts, seemed sensible and had a background in health sciences. When the host asked about her ultimate dream, the girl replied, “I want to be famous.” The host, who was quite sharp, responded: ‘My goal in life was simply to do what I love most. I believe that when you do what you love, you inevitably become well-known because you excel at it. Why did you reverse the process? These days, it seems everything starts from the opposite end. How do you become famous now? Through a couple of one- or two-minute clips you post on social media. The late journalist Mehmet Ali Birand used to refer to this as “the man on the street.” It is impossible to ignore how the very demographic captured by that phrase those whose sole ambition is to “become famous” has come to occupy the absolute epicenter of the system. By seizing power, they have turned the entire structure upside down, starting with democracy itself. It is plain to see how this reversal is pregnant with dangerous consequences.

For instance, early news research and media studies were characterized by an inherent elitism. This is where the ‘discourse elites’ stood out against those at the bottom of the discursive hierarchy. Even a superficial glance at traditional news sources revealed that discourse was exclusively manufactured by elites, namely political, economic, or bureaucratic figures who controlled the gates of information. However, if you look closely, starting in the 1990s, ‘third-page’ tabloid news gradually migrated to the core of the media ecosystem. The very sources Birand labeled as “people on the street” have now come to dominate the landscape via YouTube, the internet, and social media. In other words, as the former underclasses of discourse began to dictate the system, less and less space remained for the intellectual elites who were once the custodians of scientifi c and cultural knowledge. This is because the system now services a world engineered not to educate, but to entertain.

If we navigate life purely in the present, without a single thought for tomorrow, we are living under grave danger. If we look for the genesis of this entertainment-centric narrative, the answer lies in “self-help” literature. The foundational ethos of personal development is encapsulated in the phrase: “Now, today, here.” The very moment you anchor yourself solely in the “here and now,” you effectively wipe your memory clean. This tyranny of the present decimates the future while completely erasing the past. Do you retain any meaningful connection to the past? Not at all. I just shared my own life story with you. In that trajectory, there was a relentless pursuit of deeper knowledge and aspirations for the future; there was a perpetual desire to learn and to teach. None of this was bound to ‘today’ it was entirely projected onto the future. Nowadays, however, because an exorbitant amount of energy is invested in the present, our daily lives are colonized, and this tyranny of the immediate is eroding the fabric of society. If we navigate life purely in the present, without a single thought for tomorrow, we are living under grave danger. When we are told that everything in our lives is going swimmingly, that is precisely when we ought to be deeply suspicious. There is even a book titled Only the Paranoid Survive. In this contemporary landscape, we are practically forced to be paranoid. Something is quietly being stripped away from us, even as we are urged to invest more and more of ourselves. We need to pause and reflect. But because we have forgotten how to think in the midst of all this noise, we cannot even manage that.

“After all, Adorno is someone with very little zest for life, who takes pleasure in nothing. You cannot expect someone who uses critical theory as ‘I will criticize everything, I will look at everything from a negative perspective’ to create music that inspires enthusiasm. He uses music solely for his elitism.”

When I first started teaching, a student of mine once told me: ‘You are trying to teach us so many things, but first, teach us how to think.’ That was a profoundly important lesson for me. So, how do we teach that? Through critical theory. And critical theory arrives with the entire corpus of the Frankfurt School. The foundational figure of this thought is Theodor W. Adorno. He is, without a doubt, the toughest nut to crack in the entire field. I recently came across a quote about him that I absolutely loved: ‘The greatest favor Adorno did was to disabuse readers of the notion that they are always smarter than the author.’ That is classic Adorno. In other words, he is implying, ‘You cannot compete with me neither in knowledge, nor intelligence, nor in your worldview.’ There is this distinct aura about Adorno that says, ‘I am brilliant, I am erudite, I am elite, and I don’t really care to accommodate you.’ Ultimately, he is saying you have a great deal to learn from him but only if you possess the patience to endure the first hundred pages, much like navigating an Umberto Eco novel.

(SPOT) So, how do we teach that? Through critical theory. And critical theory arrives with the entire corpus of the Frankfurt School. The foundational figure of this thought is Theodor W. Adorno. For example, Max Weber’s three-and-a-half to four-month journey to America fundamentally transformed sociology. It shifted the entire paradigm of European sociology and demonstrated just how pivotal religion is as a societal element. Yet, this American influence is stubbornly downplayed by the Frankfurt School, particularly by Adorno. It was only toward the end of his life, in a 30-page essay, that he finally conceded America’s profound impact. Without America, after all, the Frankfurt School would not have survived it saved their lives, quite literally. When Adorno returned to Germany, the Americans were understandably furious, thinking: ‘We rescued you and your colleagues, and without a shred of gratitude, you tore us to shreds by labeling us a “culture industry.”’ Had Adorno not witnessed that reality firsthand, he could never have conceptualized the ‘culture industry.’

Foucault, in his work on the ‘intellectual gaze,’ posits that true intellectual vision is only possible when one examines their own world from the outside. By experiencing an alien environment, you gain the rare vantage point needed to look back at your own society objectively. As long as you remain submerged within it, you are blind to its contours; you cannot map its coordinates. But once you step outside, the mind is forced into a comparative state, which is precisely what catalyzes dialectical thought. Consequently, the thinkers of the Frankfurt School owe the evolution of their paradigm to their exile in New York and, subsequently, California, where during their stay, they deliberately insulated themselves within a sort of intellectual ghetto.

(SPOT) By experiencing an alien environment, you gain the rare vantage point needed to look back at your own society objectively. As long as you remain submerged within it, you are blind to its contours; you cannot map its coordinates. But once you step outside, the mind is forced into a comparative state, which is precisely what catalyzes dialectical thought. Perhaps this is also fundamentally linked to Jewish education. Ultimately, Hebrew contains no vowels; it consists entirely of consonants, and a text cannot resonate without someone to vocalize it. The individual who provides that vocalization eventually emerges as the leader of the community. Through their erudition, their ability to decipher the text, and their capacity to narrate it, a structure reminiscent of shamanism takes shape; they regard their language as their true homeland. Language transforms into a sanctuary. When Adorno returned to Germany, he gave an interview. When asked, ‘Why did you return to Germany?’ he famously replied, ‘I did not return to Germany; I returned to the German language.’ In that single sentence, you can feel the immense suffering he endured over those eleven years of exile. He returned to his language because Adorno was a thinker who wrote from the station of the ink.

Max Horkheimer acted as his father figure. He rarely commands the spotlight, yet it is fair to say that without Horkheimer, Adorno could never have truly become Adorno. The tight-knit enclave they established among themselves in California kept them anchored and ensured their collective survival, driven by a mutual dependence that was both intellectual and material. Furthermore, there is nothing more notoriously difficult in academia than co-authoring a book; yet, during the creation of Dialectic of Enlightenment, it is evident that both thinkers possessed such a symphonic alignment of thought that they could virtually complete each other’s sentences. There was absolute equilibrium between them. Operating and writing in a second language is a harrowing endeavor. No matter how brilliant you are, it takes at least four to five years for the cognitive dominance of your native tongue to recede, and Adorno actively resisted that erosion. German was the very matrix that generated the intellectual Adorno. Consequently, he does not look favorably upon English, which he regards as secondary. Nor does he look favorably upon the place. Sometimes his friends criticize him: “Did you see this light in the sky in Germany? Why are you pushing American life so far away?” He replies, “There’s a lack of landscape.” That’s what surprises me. How can there be a lack of landscape in America? What kind of landscape could he possibly have in mind? He has the landscape of German cities in his head. The first thing you notice when you first go to America is the excess of light. The country has a completely different kind of light. His friends even get annoyed with him, saying, ‘You didn’t see this kind of light in Germany.’ But California’s scenery was supposedly insufficient… For instance, if you look at Jean Baudrillard’s America, it’s a sociologist’s America through and through. Adorno’s America, however, is just exile for him. Yet that exile saved your life; it was through that popularity there that you became ‘Adorno.’ Had he stayed in his own country, he would likely have been a failed musician or musicologist. The things he attempted to write about music were not well received anyway. After all, Adorno is someone with very little zest for life, who takes pleasure in nothing. You cannot expect someone who uses critical theory as ‘I will criticize everything, I will look at everything from a negative perspective’ to create music that inspires enthusiasm. He uses music solely for his elitism.

Of course, they all have that rigorous German education in their backgrounds. They owe their perspectives, their critical faculties, and their entire way of thinking to German discipline. In fact, Communication Studies also owes a great deal to German roots. We don’t place much importance on this here, but when you look at it, that academic and cultural cultivation whether from a place of exile or somewhere you went to learn creates very significant differences in you.

Deniz Benzer: You mentioned that Adorno’s view of America was negative. When we look at Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment, we see that they also criticize Germany at one point. What are your thoughts on that work?

N.R: Unhappiness isn’t something that leaves Adorno anyway; wherever you go, you carry it with you. The Dialectic of Enlightenment is a first-year undergraduate study. After that, it should lead you to Negative Dialectics. Don’t you need a German education to rethink the Enlightenment? Otherwise, you can’t really imagine an American thinking about the Enlightenment and examining it within that framework. That’s why that German education or perhaps that continental European education is necessary. After all, by the age of twenty, the entire body of macro-knowledge has already formed in these people. After that, it moves toward choosing a direction and producing results. Of course, we must not forget that there is also the impact of the trauma seriously experienced there. The transformation of dialectics into the negative in fact, these two volumes need to be taken together. You can’t just read The Dialectic of Enlightenment and stop there. You have to complete it with Negative Dialectics. Because one was written in America, while the other was written in German upon his return. It’s impossible to create an Adorno framework without seeing both of those. But you can criticize it from this angle: there is discourse, but no action. All of his students criticize him this way. Don’t get mad at Adorno, there’s nothing to be done. It’s clear that we still learn a great deal from every text, every sentence of his…

Not everyone has to be a man of action. Academics have their own personalities, too. Some thinkers have been both men of discourse and men of action. I am also interested in the personalities of thinkers, and from what I can see, an activist character would never have emerged from Adorno. I wish everyone could be like that, but they don’t have to be. Take Herbert Marcuse, for example he’s one of them and a man of action. No one ever told him, “You’re still involved in this stuff even in your 70s.” These people are also the intellectual fathers of the ’68 generation.

The students are angry with Adorno for that reason, too: “We’re here in the squares because of you, with your ideas, but you still aren’t coming out.” Adorno doesn’t feel forced to do this. You don’t have to go out into the square. Learn, think, speak; continue your action in another way. You don’t have to be in the streets. But no one ever told Marcuse, at his advanced age, to “wander around the squares.” It’s entirely a matter of character. We all have a character, an inner drive. Something is pulling you toward it. That driving force is an innate character. If you have siblings, you know that no sibling follows another. They’re all different. There’s a formula from above. I believe in it. We’re all born with that formula, and we strive to fill it out. So don’t be angry with Adorno. He was born that way. There’s nothing to be done.

From Chicago to Frankfurt: The History of Communication Studies yazısı ilk önce Context Dergi üzerinde ortaya çıktı.